WASHINGTON — Despite White House assurances that President Clinton does not plan to grant federal recognition to three Connecticut Indian tribes before leaving office next month, Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4th District, warned Tuesday that any such order would be investigated by Congress.

Shays, a senior member of the House Government Reform Committee, joined Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., in urging the incoming Bush administration to revamp the recognition process, which they said has been tainted by politics, connections and large campaign contributions, mostly to Democrats.

In recent weeks, rumors have swirled in Washington and Connecticut that Clinton planned to grant the federal status -- crucial to any tribe's hopes of opening a lucrative casino -- to about a dozen tribes nationwide, including the Golden Hill Paugussetts, the Eastern Pequots and the Paucatuck Eastern Pequots.

But White House spokesman Steve Boyd said Monday that the president has no plans to recognize any tribes by executive order.

``It's music to my ears,'' Shays said when told about Boyd's statement and other similar White House statements. ``But if the recognition process isn't followed fairly, we would look into that.''

Shay said he fears that the federal government may not follow its own well-established standards for determining whether a tribe should get official recognition. In September, he and Wolf joined five other members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson, in requesting that the General Accounting Office investigate the integrity, consistency and effectiveness of the tribal recognition process administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The investigation is under way.

``The decision to federally acknowledge a tribe does more than define the relationship between the Indian group and the Unites States; it affects entire communities,'' Shays and the others said in their letter to GAO. ``In Connecticut, where there are 11 [recognition] petitions, every region of the state is confronted with land claims and gambling facilities. The same is true in other states.''

Wolf said Tuesday that gambling on Indian reservations has done little to benefit the vast majority of people living on Native American tribal lands, many of whom are severely impoverished. He called for alternative steps to help native people, such as enterprise zones to encourage other forms of development.

``Today, 12 years after the federal government made gambling a staple of its Indian policy, the overall portrait of America's most impoverished group continues to be dominated by disease, unemployment, infant mortality and school drop-out rates that are among the highest in the nation,'' Wolf said. ``Twenty percent of all Indian gambling revenue goes to a few hundred members of two eastern Connecticut tribes. The overall picture is one of untold riches for a few smaller tribes and continued poverty for the vast majority of Indians spread across America.''

He was referring to the phenomenally successful Connecticut casinos run by the Mashantucket Pequot and the Mohegan tribes.